Romans 12: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Paul turns from teaching to instruction for daily life. He asks believers to offer their bodies to God as living sacrifices and to let God change the way they think, then warns them not to overrate themselves, since believers form one body with many different gifts. The rest of the chapter is a rapid list of instructions about sincere love, hospitality, humility, and how to treat people who mistreat them, closing with the command to leave revenge to God and to overcome evil with good.

Claim by Claim

1. 12:1
   • Paul urges the brothers to act.
   • Paul makes this appeal by the mercies of God.
   • The appeal is that they present their bodies as a sacrifice.
   • The sacrifice is living.
   • The sacrifice is holy.
   • The sacrifice is pleasing to God.
   • Presenting their bodies in this way is their rational, spiritual act of worship.
2. 12:2
   • They are not to be conformed to the pattern of this present age.
   • They are to be transformed by the renewing of the mind.
   • The purpose of this is that they may discern what the will of God is.
   • The will of God is good.
   • The will of God is pleasing.
   • The will of God is perfect.
3. 12:3
   • Paul speaks through the grace given to him.
   • Paul speaks to every person among them.
   • No one is to think of himself more highly than he ought to think.
   • Each is to think with sober judgment.
   • God has apportioned to each one a measure of faith.
4. 12:4
   • We have many members in one body.
   • Not all the members have the same function.
5. 12:5
   • We who are many are one body in Christ.
   • Each one is a member belonging to the others.
6. 12:6
   • We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us.
   • If the gift is prophecy, it is to be used in proportion to faith.
7. 12:7
   • If the gift is service, it is to be used in serving.
   • If someone teaches, he is to use his gift in teaching.
8. 12:8
   • If someone exhorts, he is to use his gift in exhortation.
   • The one who gives is to do so with singleness of heart.
   • The one who leads is to do so with diligence.
   • The one who shows mercy is to do so with cheerfulness.
9. 12:9
   • Love is to be without hypocrisy.
   • They are to hate what is evil.
   • They are to cling to what is good.
10. 12:10
    • They are to be tenderly devoted to one another in brotherly love.
    • They are to go before one another in showing honor.
    • It is unclear whether this means outdoing one another in honor or giving honor to others first.
11. 12:11
    • They are not to be lazy in diligence.
    • They are to be fervent in spirit.
    • They are to serve the Lord.
12. 12:12
    • They are to rejoice in hope.
    • They are to endure under affliction.
    • They are to persist steadfastly in prayer.
13. 12:13
    • They are to share in the needs of the saints.
    • They are to pursue hospitality.
14. 12:14
    • They are to bless those who persecute them.
    • They are to bless and not curse.
15. 12:15
    • They are to rejoice with those who rejoice.
    • They are to weep with those who weep.
16. 12:16
    • They are to have the same mind toward one another.
    • They are not to set their minds on lofty things.
    • They are to associate with the lowly.
    • It is unclear whether the lowly means lowly people or lowly things.
    • They are not to be wise in their own estimation.
17. 12:17
    • They are to repay no one evil for evil.
    • They are to take thought beforehand for what is good in the sight of all people.
18. 12:18
    • If it is possible, and so far as it depends on them, they are to live at peace with all people.
19. 12:19
    • Paul addresses them as beloved.
    • They are not to avenge themselves.
    • They are to give place to wrath instead.
    • It is written that vengeance belongs to God.
    • God says he will repay.
    • The Lord is the one who says this.
20. 12:20
    • If your enemy is hungry, feed him.
    • If your enemy is thirsty, give him drink.
    • By doing this you will heap coals of fire on his head.
21. 12:21
    • They are not to be overcome by evil.
    • They are to overcome evil with good.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

12:1

"Sacrifice" in the ancient world meant an animal killed and burned on an altar; calling a body a "living sacrifice" deliberately turns that image on its head. "Reasonable service" is misleading today: the Greek word behind "service" means the work of worship carried out at a temple, and "reasonable" (logikos) means belonging to the mind or reason, which some understand as "rational" and others as "spiritual" rather than literal. The phrase describes worship offered with the whole person rather than through animals.

12:2

"Prove" in 1611 English meant to test something to find out what it is, the way metal was assayed, not to demonstrate it to someone else. "Conformed" and "transformed" translate two different Greek words, the first suggesting an outward shape pressed on from outside, the second a change of what a thing actually is.

12:3

"Soberly" here has nothing to do with drink; it means with a sound, level estimate of yourself. "The measure of faith" is genuinely ambiguous in the Greek and has been read both as the particular amount of faith God has assigned to each person and as faith itself serving as the standard by which each person measures himself.

12:4

"Members" means the parts of a body, arms, eyes, feet, not people who have joined a group. "Office" in 1611 English meant the job or function a thing performs.

12:5

"Members" in the King James means body parts, like a hand or an eye. It does not mean members of a club.

12:6

"The proportion of faith" translates a Greek phrase that has been read two ways: in keeping with the amount of faith the speaker has, or in keeping with the shared content of what is believed.

12:7

"Ministry" translates diakonia, ordinary practical service such as handling food, money and errands, not clergy work. "Let us wait on our ministering" uses "wait on" in the old sense of attend to it, stick at it.

12:8

"Exhorteth" covers both urging someone to act and comforting or encouraging them. "Simplicity" translates a word meaning singleness of heart, without mixed motives, which in the context of giving came to mean openhandedness. "He that ruleth" is ambiguous in Greek and can mean the one who leads or presides, or the one who takes charge of caring for others. "Sheweth" is simply the older spelling of shows.

12:9

"Dissimulation" means pretending, putting on a false front; the Greek word literally means without acting a part on stage. "Cleave to" means glue yourself to, not split from; the English verb has two opposite meanings and this is the sticking one.

12:10

"Kindly affectioned" translates a Greek word used of the natural affection inside a family, between parents and children. "In honour preferring one another" is ambiguous in the Greek and has been read both as outdoing each other in showing honor and as taking the lead in honoring the other person first.

12:11

"Not slothful in business" does not refer to commerce or employment. "Business" here means eager effort or diligence in general, and the line says do not let your eagerness go slack. "Fervent" translates a word meaning boiling or bubbling up with heat.

12:12

"Tribulation" means pressure or hard affliction of any kind, not a specific end-times event. "Continuing instant in prayer" uses "instant" in its old sense of urgent and persistent, not immediate; the phrase means keep at prayer without letting up.

12:13

"Saints" in the New Testament means all members of the Christian community, everyone set apart for God, not a special class of exceptionally holy people named as such by a later church. "Given to hospitality" meant something concrete in the ancient world: inns were few, expensive and often dangerous, so traveling believers depended on households willing to house and feed strangers.

12:14

To "bless" and to "curse" here are speech acts addressed to God, asking him to do good to someone or to bring harm on them. Cursing in this sense was a recognized practice, not merely bad language.

12:16

"Condescend" has reversed its sense since 1611. It did not mean to talk down to someone; it meant to come down willingly to their level and keep company with them gladly. The Greek is also ambiguous and can mean be carried along with lowly people or with lowly things, that is, humble tasks. "Be not wise in your own conceits" uses "conceits" in the older sense of your own opinion or estimate of yourself.

12:17

Both key words have shifted. "Provide" meant to plan or take thought beforehand, from the Latin for seeing ahead, and "honest" meant honorable or admirable to look at, not truthful. The line is about arranging your conduct in advance so that outsiders can see it is decent.

12:18

As much as lieth in you means as far as it is up to you. Some people will not make peace, and you cannot force them.

12:19

"Give place unto wrath" means leave room for it rather than crowd it out, and the wrath in question is generally understood to be God's, as the quotation that follows indicates. The quoted words come from Deuteronomy 32:35, part of a song of Moses about God settling accounts himself.

12:20

These words are quoted from Proverbs 25:21 to 22. The image of "coals of fire" on the head is disputed and was already old when Paul used it: readings include an Egyptian penitence ritual in which a person carried a pan of burning coals as a sign of shame, the burning sting of remorse produced in an enemy by kindness, and the giving of live coals to a neighbor whose fire had gone out.